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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29129727">The Fable of King Jerry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anam_Writes/pseuds/Anam_Writes'>Anam_Writes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Immortal Family [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, F/M, Fables - Freeform, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Jerry is a lil shit, Tags Contain Spoilers, seriously, the SPOILERS START HERE:</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:27:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29129727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anam_Writes/pseuds/Anam_Writes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The world was new now. The Queen said it was better and the King from afar agreed. But how much better was it to be a widow with a living husband or a father with no children to speak of?</p><p>These were not questions one should ask.</p><p>Prince Jeralt asked them all the same.</p><p>...</p><p>A short fable on the relationship between Claude and his son Jeralt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Claude von Riegan &amp; Original Character(s), My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Immortal Family [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Fable of King Jerry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the first child arrives it is forbidden in all but words to speak of how his pink skin deepens with every passing hour until it is a healthy brown shade, blessed with warmth. One is only to speak of how miraculous it is that the Queen has conceived alone as the Goddess once had, or how the volume of his cry, ringing through the halls, ensures he will grow to be a strong, hearty prince.</p><p>When the second is born propriety dictates one avoid the topic of her green eyes, dark as Derdriu’s ocean’s depths and twinkling with the rays of dawn come anew. Instead the spirited way she took her first steps at such an early age was considered far more appropriate conversation. What a warrior she’d be, the court agreed.</p><p>When the third came no comment was made on how dark her mess of curls were atop her head, darker even still than her siblings’. Only the tender look of her infant smile and the great beauty she was sure to possess bore any worth in mentioning. She would be a lady of grace, to be sure.</p><p>And nothing was said when the King of Almyra came to speak with the Queen on matters of state.</p><p>The Prince and Princesses of Fódlan stood in a line beside their mother and bowed to him as strangers might for any foreign King.</p><p>All was in accordance with the ways the world was.</p><p>Just as the world was in accordance with the way of things when Queen Byleth was small, heart immovable in her chest, with local children throwing pebbles at her back.</p><p>That same world, set so proportionately to the way of things, where King Khalid had fought for his life, in his fifth summer and lying in his deathbed. Poison caused foam to rise from his lungs and a crest he did not know he had from a Goddess he’d never heard of resuscitating him each time the reaper tried to hold the child in comforting arms.</p><p>The world was new now. The Queen said it was better and the King from afar agreed. But how much better was it to be a widow with a living husband or a father with no children to speak of?</p><p>These were not questions one should ask.</p><p>Prince Jeralt asked them all the same.</p><p>When he was in his fifth summer - the age King Khalid had been when he had passed a dozen times and come to life a dozen and one - little Prince Jerry came to the man. They were in the garden where they always sat whenever the King could visit.</p><p>“Claude,” he called the King as his mother did. “Why is your skin so warm?”</p><p>“In Almyra we are blessed with sun. It makes my blood run warm,” the King laughed. He pressed his hand to the Prince’s cheek and, indeed, it was as he said. “And as for colour, I am as my father, just like you have your mother’s eyes.”</p><p>“I looked in the mirror this morning,” the Prince says. “And saw my skin is like yours.”</p><p>“It’s because I love you so much that I sent the Almyran sun here to keep you warm.”</p><p>It is nine moons that pass and a handful of weeks before the King comes again. Prince Jerry is sitting in the garden once, with a new sister in his mother’s embrace. King Khalid comes to sit with the Prince on a blanket newly weaved.</p><p>“Why are your eyes so green, Claude?” the little Prince asked the King.</p><p>“When I lived in Derdriu long ago I used to fly over the sea,” he said. “It kissed my eyes, stung quite a bit, but since then my eyes have been green.”</p><p>“I saw my sister’s eyes this morning for the very first time.”</p><p>The King smiles. “They’re lovely, Esther’s eyes. As lovely as your mother’s and yours.”</p><p>“They’re dark, dark green,” the Prince says. “Not light, like ours. How did they get to be so?”</p><p>“I love Esther so much I sent the sea to kiss her,” he told him. “And ordered it to hold the salt.”</p><p>The King makes many visits more, whenever there is time to spare. He teaches little Jerry to ride and when they walk he’s always sure to ruffle his hair. One day, when Prince Jerry comes just above King Khalid’s hip in height he asks what he might do to learn to fly a wyvern like he does.</p><p>“I am a barbarossa,” Claude tells him, gesturing to fine cloth. It is an Almyran textile around his waist that Jerry’s seen before. “My father passed this down to me when I came of age. Learn to ride, shoot and to fly and one day I’ll give you mine.”</p><p>“Because you’re my father?” Prince Jerry asks.</p><p>The King can only laugh. “Because I can’t say no to your mother’s face so finely set in yours.”</p><p>The third child comes after many more years that slowly drift away. The King visits once when the Queen is heavy with a child without his name. But the King smiles more than Jerry has seen before, for this birth was not the same.</p><p>While his mother rested in her bed, the King brought Jerry into the suite. He held one of the Queen's babes, newly born, for the first time, and was allowed to pick her name.</p><p>"Ruth," he told Jerry, introducing Prince to Princess. "It's an old Almyran name."</p><p>"Her hair is thick," Jerry said. "Tell me, what fantastical thing have you done to give her these raven curls?"</p><p>“I went to the terrace and spoke with the stars,” the King tells wondering Prince. "They shaved off a piece of the night sky to make the Princess her crown."</p><p>Years more come to pass with much turmoil between, and Jeralt the First is made King. He travels east then, and fights next for the crown that sits on the Almyran King's head. With a last duel between King Jeralt and King Khalid, the Great Continent is unified. No more do the mountains cut as teeth between one peoples and another.</p><p>"Baba," Jerry calls after Claude before he leaves the palace one last time.</p><p>"Oh, Jerry," his father comes to hold him close and runs a hand through his hair. "Your father commands the sun and sea and wears the night sky for a crown. He begot you all immaculately. How could that be me? I am just an old man, stepping down from a mortal throne."</p><p>"The Almyran sun warms me for you love me so," Jerry told the old man. "Well I love you, Baba, and my siblings as well; so we give to you this name, wrestled from our father's tongue. Now that I'm King you can't complain. I say so, and so it is done."</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>A short fable accredited to King Jeralt I Eisner of the Great Continent.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At first glance it supports the common historical theory that the missing Sovereign Duke of Leicester, Claude von Riegan, was in fact also Shah Khalid III of the Al-Kir dynasty. That is if the document is reliable in its claim of authorship.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Many pieces of Imperialist or otherwise anti-unification and xenophobic propoganda of the time also follow similar narratives as to the ancestry of the Eisners. Claims of a connection between Duke Riegan and Shah Khalid III—that one, the other, or both carried out illicit affairs with Byleth I, so on so forth—are very common in such pieces. Some employ these claims for outlandish and obvious slander; while others use more subtle versions of the narrative to delegitimize the Eisners or Unified Fódlan.* The strongest hint that this work may be purely fictional is that it makes no mention of the fourth child of Queen Byleth I Eisner, Prince Reuban Eisner. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Meanwhile, all official documents and accounts known to be of the Eisner family vehemently denounce such rhetoric. This is not to suggest the theological explanation is correct—or even that Khalid III was not somehow involved in the Eisner family tree. Rather, it is a reminder that there is both strong historical precedence and political motivation for this document to be no more than it claims: a fable.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Regardless, I think there is one thing we can learn from both the history and literature surrounding Jeralt I; he had some major daddy issues.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Claude Khan PhD.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>*The Gloucester County Inquest of 5 AU</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
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